Another season of refereeing has ended. This fall was a bit different because I also helped coach a boys U12 town team in addition to refereeing. I’ve seen some recent threads on a couple of soccer discussion forums bemoaning the poor state of officiating. Speaking as a referee I know there is a great variety of quality among referees just as there is among coaches (and parents). The job is not as easy as it might look to parents and coaches who are standing on the sidelines. Decisions have to be made on the fly without the benefit of instant reply.
I also know that there is no unanimity among referees. My home games for the boys’ team I coached were officiated by referees with whom I worked on other games. They made some calls I wouldn’t have. I’ve also worked the lines for a number of games where I would have called something differently than the center referee. When I’ve centered games I asked my A/Rs about certain calls I made. Sometimes they agreed with me while sometimes they didn’t. Even when I take the annual referee recertification in which we watch USSF videos of actual games the opinions among us differs.
I think people also forget or aren’t aware of the fact that referees do have to take annual recertification classes in order to keep their badge. Admittedly it’s only 4 or 5 hours a year but it’s more than coaches get! After I getting my USSF D license four years ago there is no requirement to follow up this course. (I think the A and B licenses do have follow ups but I’m not certain.) I’m also lucky in that my referee assignor works some games with me so I’ll ask him for feedback after a game.
I did get a chuckle earlier this season when in one game the coach from my town accused me of favoring the visiting team. In the following game the visiting coach accused me of favoring the home team! In both cases the teams of the protesting coaches played much more physically, using their elbows freely to buy space.
In any case, I know none of the above excuses us referees from trying to do a good job. Part of the frustration, especially for younger teams is that the referees typically are only a couple of years older than the age group they’re officiating. Assignors do this to help these young referees get the experience they need to get better without throwing them to the wolves (by giving them games of older ages where the competition is stronger and the demands and expectations are higher).
